McCullough took his eyes from the natives for a moment and studied her searchingly. "You sure?" he asked. She nodded. Some of the color was coming back in her face again now, and she looked all right. He looked back at the two natives. He should have them arrested, he supposed, but to file a complaint meant going to court and losing a day's work. It did not even occur to him to hold them for the mob. He gestured with the gun muzzle. "OK," he said roughly. "Get out of here, now. Get!" The natives looked at each other. Outside, there was a rattle of shots in the alley, and several high-pitched screams. The native by the window wet his lips and shook his head, and the other turned back toward McCullough. He had a knife in his hand, which he swung menacingly. "No," he said. "No go outside. Kill." It was not clear if he meant the verb passively or actively, but with the knife not six feet from Mary and the children, it did not seem a proper time to discuss fine points of grammar. McCullough shot him in the belly. At that range, the charge almost tore the slight native in half. The other Centauran turned and came lunging toward him, and McCullough fired again. The native stumbled and fell in a heap in the middle of the floor, half across the body of the first. McCullough stepped over them to the back door and glanced out, dropping fresh charges in the gun as he did so. There were no natives in sight but several white men were in the alley, looking around, trying to decide where the shots had come from. Henry Watts was with them. He saw McCullough at the door and called out to him: "You hear those shots? Two of 'em ran back up this alley. You see them?" "They came in my house," McCullough said. "I shot both of them." "Good, by God," Watts yelled. "That's two we don't have to worry about." "There's one more left," another man called from up the alley. "He ducked around through Gordon's lot." The men ran off up the alley on the new scent, and McCullough turned back into the kitchen. Mary had collapsed into a chair and was sobbing with her head in her arms. The two children clung to her, staring wide-eyed at the bodies of the natives. McCullough walked over and patted her on the back. "It's OK now, Mary," he said. "It's OK, nothing to worry about now." His wife went on crying, and he stood there awkwardly, not quite knowing what to do. He noticed that the dark purplish blood of the natives, almost black, was spreading in little rivulets and pools over the kitchen floor. The floor was of sanded white wood, and stained easily. There were some folded tarps in the lean-to where McCullough kept his tools. He got one and rolled the bodies over onto it. As he did so, he saw that one of them, the second one he had shot, was still alive. The shot had gone low and mangled the native's upper leg. He stared up at McCullough with opaque expressionless eyes, slowly bleeding to death.